undesirable
/ˌʌndɪˈzaɪɹəbəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.36 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
5
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Not desirable, objectionable or not likely to please.
noun
An undesirable person.
Example Sentences
- "There would be no need for any of the animals to come in contact with human beings, which would clearly be most undesirable."
- "Chronic venous disease includes cosmetically undesirable telangiectasias, varicose veins, venous ulceration, and claudication."
- "[David] Brog spoke movingly of his immigrant grandfather as a triumph of the assimilationist model—a Romanian Jew who emigrated to America, learned English, and became a good patriotic American—but failed to mention that the 1924 Immigration Act was designed specifically to exclude Eastern European Jews (among other undesirable European ethnic groups) from entering the country."
- "Barskiven Road was The Undesirables. Bad corporation tenants (didn't pay their rents, didn't dig their gardens, let their kids smash up windows) were transferred to The Undesirables until they showed they'd improved. His mother called them scum. Barskiven Road houses had all-metal fittings. Only the window panes could be broken, unless you had a blow-torch. McCann said they'd have them, soon. At the dancing blokes always made jokes if they knew a dame was from The Undesirables. It was supposed to be the worst street in the whole of Kilcaddie."
- "The Matchmaking Festival provided social events for these lonely-hearted pilgrims, and allowed local personages to keep undesirables away from their daughters."
- "The Camden Bench is not an anomaly: more and more, our cities are being designed to keep those deemed as ‘undesirables’ out. By its very nature this is ‘hostile architecture’—urban design with a focus on exclusion, design that inhibits community and tells us who is welcome and who is not."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Germanic *un- Proto-West Germanic *un- Old English un- Middle English un- English un- English desirable English undesirable From un- + desirable.